


Happy Birthday, Genius

by homoose



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:26:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27971552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/homoose/pseuds/homoose
Summary: It’s Spencer Reid’s 39th birthday. That’s it, that’s the fic.a/n: not me celebrating a fictional character’s birthday like I know him IRL lmao. Also, I wrote this in about an hour and a half so be gentle.
Relationships: Spencer Reid & Reader, Spencer Reid & You, Spencer Reid/Reader, Spencer Reid/You
Kudos: 30





	Happy Birthday, Genius

Spencer didn’t move as the alarm sounded. He’d been awake for the past two hours and seventeen minutes. He watched from the corner of his eye as Y/N lifted her head from where it was buried in the pillow, reaching out to blindly smack at the offending electronic. When she silenced the blaring _beep beep beep_ of the clock, she dropped her face back into the pillow momentarily. She gave a full body stretch and pulled her leg up under her to shift onto her side. Spencer rolled onto his side as well, coming almost nose to nose with her.

“Happy Birthday, doc.” Y/N smiled sleepily at him, closing the small gap between them and pressing a kiss to his lips. Spencer used a hand on her neck and the other on her waist, pulling her impossibly closer to him. She laughed against his mouth and he smiled. She pushed him back to lie flat and moved, rather ungracefully at this early hour, to straddle his lap. He raised up on his elbows, chasing her lips, and she felt the tell tale press against the curve of her ass. “Eager this morning, aren’t we?”

Spencer pouted at her. “Do you have time?”

Y/N looked at the clock and sighed. Spencer was on his sabbatical and had no Wednesday lecture. Y/N was not so lucky. “Not enough to give you _all_ your gifts.” She slid further down his body, quickly becoming just a lump under the duvet. “But definitely enough to tide you over.”

⧭⧭⧭

Y/N zipped up her jacket and looped her scarf around her neck. “Okay, I’m going to try to leave early. Steve owes me one, so I should be able to slip out by 3:00.” She tripped slightly as she stuffed her feet into her boots. “Dinner’s at 6:00, so we’ve got to leave here by 5:30.”

Spencer tapped his fingers against his thighs, watching her straighten up and throw her bag over her shoulder. “Got it.”

Y/N stepped to him and gave him a look that was so soft that his heart clenched. “I love you. Happy Birthday. Have the best day.” She punctuated each sentence with a kiss. “Oh, and please _try_ not to do any work today. Do something that’s just for you.” She took his hands in hers and squeezed. “I’m sorry I can’t hang out with you all day, birthday boy.”

“I know.” He squeezed her hands in return. “I love you. I’ll see you tonight.” She closed the door behind her, leaving only a waft of her perfume.

Spencer stood for a moment in the empty apartment. He used to love the silence, the solitude. He had enough chaos in his life to appreciate the moments alone. Then Y/N came barreling through the quiet, and suddenly he couldn’t get enough. He loved blaring Sinatra and dancing across the kitchen tile, the thirty minute shower concerts, gasps in the dark, her laughs echoing off the ceiling.

More often than not, she was the one to be left alone, although he imagined it was never very quiet. He almost always had a case or a course that devoured his time. He was finding more and more that he no longer felt comfortable in the silence. Now, where he would have once relished the time alone, he craved the chorus of her laugh and the waltz of her fingers on his skin.

He was pulled from his thoughts by the sound of the door buzzer. He held down the button to talk. “Hello?”

A man’s voice came through the speaker. “Yeah, this is Kyle, I’ve got your Postmates order downstairs.”

Spencer furrowed his brow. “I—I think maybe you have the wrong buzzer?”

He heard rustling on the other end of the intercom. “You’re Spencer, right?”

“Um, yeah. Hang on, let me buzz you in.” Spencer walked to the door and turned the deadbolt. He opened it to see Kyle jogging up the stairs, brown paper bag in one hand and paper coffee cup in the other. Spencer gave a little wave as the delivery man turned round the banister. “Thank you so much.”

Kyle bid him a good day, and Spencer closed the door and walked to set the food on the counter. He didn’t have to open the bag to know from the label that it would be his favorite breakfast sandwich from the cafe on the corner. He fumbled his phone out of his pocket and shot off a text to Y/N.

Spencer: _Thank you for the breakfast._

Y/N: _Happy Birthday, mon chéri! :)_

Birthdays hadn’t really become meaningful to Spencer until he was an adult. Up until the age of ten, birthdays had been special enough with his parents, although he never had many friends in attendance. After his father walked out, he was left with the responsibility of taking care of both the household and his mother. Diana hadn’t always had the coherency to recognize the day, so he’d taken to cherishing her lucid days more than the calendar days. Throughout college, there hadn’t been time to spend on birthday celebrations, and again, the circle of friends was relatively small. It wasn’t until he started at the BAU that anyone had really gone out of their way to celebrate him. This was the first year since then that he’d been on sabbatical for his birthday. Compounded with the impact of SARS-COV2 and the team’s schedule, he wasn’t able to celebrate with them for the first time in over a decade.

Y/N knew this fact was weighing on Spencer’s heart, and by the end of the day, he could confidently say that she had committed to making up for the missing pieces. There was a new surprise almost every hour; firstly, the new book he’d mentioned a week or so ago, detailing the beginnings of Egyptology. At 11:00am, there was a phone call from Ethan. Around noon, a new cozy cardigan delivered to the mailbox. At 2:00, a text message that just said _check your email_. The first link brought him to a Flipgrid of video greetings from all of the BAU, past and present. The second linked him to an emotional video message from one of his mom’s recent good days.

By the time Y/N walked through the door at 3:00, Spencer was utterly overwhelmed. As soon as she stepped over the threshold, she began honking a rhythm into the fringed noisemaker hanging out of her mouth. “Happy Birthday to the Boy Genius!” _Honk!_ “Happy Birthday to the Hot Professor!” _Honk! Honk!_ “Happy Birthday to the Spooky Scorpio King!” _Honk! Honk! Honk!_ “Happy Birthday to the Sweetest Angel on planet Earth!” She dropped next to him on the couch, honking one more time for good measure.

“You are truly one of a kind,” Spencer told her.

“And don’t you forget it, doc.” Y/N booped his nose. “Okay, I’ve got good news and bad news. The bad news is, the restaurant had to cancel our reservation because COVID is a nasty bitch. The good news is that it’s _gorgeous_ outside, and when I drove past the park I almost cried at how beautiful the trees are right now.” She smiled and patted his leg. “So I was thinking, you and me and an early picnic dinner? Maybe jump in a pile of leaves or something.”

“That sounds like the perfect end to a perfect day,” Spencer said quietly.

“The end? Oh no, my friend.” Y/N cackled, turning up the sultry in her voice. “The end of your special day is going to be me finishing what I started this morning.” She grinned at him and ran a finger down his chest. “But I’m pretty sure that’s illegal to do in public.”

⧭⧭⧭

They strolled up to the park around 4:30, the sunlight fading and beaming streaks in between the trees. Y/N hadn’t been kidding about the trees; they were at the height of their color, a perfect palette of the warmest end of the color spectrum. Spencer had always loved this time of year, almost as much as he loved this remarkable woman. “Thank you.” Spencer tugged at Y/N’s hand, their fingers intertwined. “The whole day was just… more than I could have imagined.”

Y/N lifted their joined hands to press a kiss to the back of Spencer’s. “You’re very welcome. I’m glad it wasn’t a total bust without the team.”

“Not at all! The video messages were great.” He laughed. “I can’t believe you got Hotch to do it. Did you see the filter he—”

“Oh my god, this tree. This is it. This is the one. The perfect tree. Look at it, Spence!”

Spencer looked at the tree in question. He didn’t necessarily notice anything different about this tree, but it was exceedingly colorful. “It’s a great tree.”

“I want a picture of you with the tree,” Y/N demanded. Spencer laughed and rolled his eyes. “I’m serious! This is the perfect tree, you are the perfect little angel baby that I love so much. Now, get in front of the tree so I can be your Instagram wife.”

“All right, all right,” Spencer put up his arms in surrender. He moved to stand in front of the tree. “You got it?”

“Oh my god, you are the worst picture taker ever. No I don’t got it, because you’re not even smiling.” She held her phone up, peering around it. “Ok just like, step to one side. Yeah, okay that’s good. Smile!”

“I’m smiling!” Spencer laughed. He smiled then, big and genuine. When he was sure she had snapped at least one, he made a silly face at her. “Okay, come on, let’s get one together.”

Y/N jogged up to him and he snuggled her close to his side. She flipped the camera so it was front facing and leaned in to give him a kiss on the cheek, snapping two photos. They took one smiling photo together, and then Y/N opened up the photos app. “Cuteness check.”

“You’re always cute,” Spencer said.

“Of course, but the photos don’t always match.” Spencer didn’t agree, but he wasn’t going to argue the point. “Oh, this one is my favorite. What do you think?”

Spencer peered over her shoulder at the photo: the one of him making the silly face. It really was a good photo. The tree was incredibly vibrant, and he looked maybe the happiest he’d ever looked. He leaned down closer to the picture, eyes scanning the background of the picture. “Is that— are you— is that real?” Spencer asked, turning around.

“SURPRISE!!!!!!” Behind the tree, standing a socially distanced six feet apart, were Rossi and Krystal; JJ, Will, and the boys; Penelope and Luke; Matt and Kristy; and Tara and Emily.

“Everybody passed the 14 day quarantine check, so we’re good to hug,” Y/N said.

Everyone took their turns giving Spencer and Y/N a hug, wishing him a happy birthday and thanking Y/N for putting it all together. They each brought their own bagged picnic dinner, and the crew milled around in the park for over an hour, chatting and laughing and catching up. As the evening winded down, they each went on their way, promising to do another socially distanced gathering soon. With final birthday wishes and hugs from the Lamontagnes, Spencer and Y/N were left, folding up the picnic blanket. Y/N packed it into the bag and threw the bag over her shoulder.

“Okay, ready to—”

Spencer swept her into a bone-crushing, soul-lifting hug, face buried in her shoulder. She wrapped her arms around his middle and gave him a squeeze. “It turned out to be a pretty good birthday, right?” she asked.

Spencer reluctantly pulled out of the hug. “Honestly? Hands down the best one I’ve ever had. No question.” He kissed her, hands on her cheeks and a lump in his throat. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“Of course.” Y/N grinned. “Hope you saved room for your metaphorical dessert, because the night is young, Dr. Reid.”

Spencer’s voice was still soft, full of wonderment and love. “I’ve always got room for you.”

Y/N laid her hands over his and kissed him again. “Happy Birthday, pretty boy.”


End file.
